An expert has warned a mega tsunami could hit Britain “at any time”, obliterating coastal towns and cities and sending millions to watery graves.
Sir David King, who once served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, says the wall of water could be triggered by a huge landslide in the Canary Islands.
The resulting devastation would send a rock the size of the Isle of Man into the Atlantic Ocean with a tsunami several metres high sent plummeting towards the UK.
Millions in towns and cities such as Brighton, Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Exeter would be wiped out, with the flood reaching further inland to London.
Sir David told My London: “After the landslide in the Canary Islands, it would take roughly six hours for the wave to reach the UK.
“That might sound like a long time to give people to escape, but there are other places where people had longer to flee yet many people still died.
“What would happen in London is that everyone would get into their cars all at once to escape the city and they’d block all the roads.
“People wouldn’t be able to get out in time and they would essentially die in their cars.”
“In the case of tsunamis, the shallower the waters are, the larger the wave will get.
Once the tsunami passes through the English Channel and into the Thames Estuary, it will grow in size and cause all sorts of destruction in the city.
“It could happen in 10,000 years time, but it could also happen tomorrow.”
The former Professor of Chemistry at the University of East Anglia compares what would happen in London to what happened in Lisbon in 1755.
The Portuguese capital was hit by a wave up to 10 metres high following an earthquake estimated to have had a magnitude of between 8.5 and 9 on the Richter scale, killing up to 100,000 people.
As well as potentially killing a significant amount of people and making families homeless, the scientist also warns of the ecological consequences of a tsunami on Londoners.
He added: “Salt water coming in from the sea could contaminate some fresh water reserves that Londoners use. There would be some ecological damage to wildlife too.
“On that note, the salt water would also saturate the soil around London.
“The change in salinity levels would mean farmers wouldn’t be able to grow crops in the area for many years afterwards, as has been seen in other tsunami-affected regions.”
